An Interview with James Poole, MD Agile Risk

 Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by James Poole, founder and managing director of Agile Risk, a venture-backed risk intermediation team based in London who's aim is to drive down the cost for clients by securitising risk.   

We had a great conversation where we covered a wide variety of topics such as:  

- What are Agile Risk doing that is different from the status quo? 

- The importance and influence of a businesses purpose  

- The universal objective of driving down the cost of risk for clients  

- Agile Risk's approach of creating a new asset class  

- The increasing demand for insurable risk in capital markets  - Investing in reinsurable risk 

- The misperception there being insufficient data in this particular area of insurance risk and  the risk being too complexed to understand  

- Capital markets are structured around the allocation of real debt and equity capital and cash 

- How important is culture in driving change? 

- Our ingrained resistance to change  

- Embracing forward looking models, eg. Monte Carlo risk model  

- Hindsight as a hindrance to change,  

- The three perennial certainties; change, principles and choice  

- These constant changes drives need for constant movement and reevaluation  

- Seeing the loss of a team member as an asset and an opportunity to embrace change  

- Can insurance businesses be too profitable to change?  

- "If it ain't broke don't fix it?!" 

- There is no fundamental requirement for a business to change, rather change is driven by the purpose of the business  

- Solely profit-driven businesses being naturally imbued to be resistant to change 

- Speed being highly valued in start-ups and the issues this can create 

- Could  insurance benefit from engaging with other forms of capital? 

- How do you avoid group think? 

- The opportunities and perspectives brought into a business through continuous learning  

 Thank you James for your time, it was great to speak to you!     

This Podcast was brought to you by FinPro, an executive recruitment business that works in the Insurance and Insurtech space     

Our host in FinPro Director, Alex Bond    

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